RIBA hosted an evening exploring taste with a programme of talks, events, performance, film and music, with contributions from Poet in the City, Swimmers, architect/designer Sam Jacob, historian/author Paul Dobraszczyk, critic Oliver Wainwright.

In collaboration with Poet in the City, Swimmers presented a reading and talk by poet Sam Riviere in connection with a site-specific installation by STORE associate Kevin Green and artist Andrew Munks.

Installation ‘Lovely’ exploring taste within the Art Deco movement.

Poetry: a condemned building? with poet Sam Riviere

‘If there’s no good or bad in art or architecture, merely convention, what’s the purpose of ‘good’ taste? In situations that are easy to imagine, apparent even, vulgarity appears as an alignment of taste and necessity… ‘Like a wrecking ball’, or a breach of tone at an awards ceremony, it has great destructive potential for monuments that have outlived their usefulness – i.e. it clears the air, lets the light in. No-body lives there anyway.’